Tim Kaine: DNC Chairman Job Didn't Hurt His Governorship

I kinda sorta agree with Kaine on this, but based on a different logic than his (surprise surprise - lol). Basically, I don't think that taking the DNC job hurt Kaine's governorship because, frankly, Kaine wasn't going to get anything through the General Assembly in 2009 regardless. So, let's say he had not taken the DNC job, what would have changed? Well, Kaine would have had more time to...uh, uh, uh...bang his head against the wall? What? Hmmmm.

Having said that, I do think you can argue that Kaine's position as DNC Chair hurt his ability to campaign for Virginia Democrats in 2009. I don't have any absolute proof of this, but I do have the fact that that Kaine's job approval rating declined last year after he took the DNC job. That couldn't possibly have helped matters for Creigh Deeds, Jody Wagner, Steve Shannon et al. In addition, the disconnect between Kaine and Deeds grew much wider than it would have if Kaine had not been in the position of advocating for national Democratic Party policies (health care reform, cap and trade, the economic stimulus package). In the end, we had a situation where Kaine was advocating for policies that Deeds was busy running away from. Not good.